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User blog:Kanthia/My Mother's Bones
Takes place in Eleint, just after the session that brought Sosostriss to Willowdale. <3 In the dirty alleyway behind the Boar and Thistle, still in her adventuring gear – complete with bloodstains up to her ankles – Ru sits, her back up against the wall, staring at the bottle in her hands. It is dusk. The low sun sends an emaciated stream of light through the beige stone buildings to a spot a few feet from where Ru is. She sighs, dropping her shoulders and letting the bottle touch the ground; she’s achy and hungry and tired and needs a bath, and the sunset is the colour of cat barf, and she’s being stupid about it all, but she needs some time alone. Who would have thought that, this whole time, Sosostriss was sleeping in her tower? The whole problem had a stupidly simple solution, and it makes Ru’s ears itch. It makes her wonder if'' everything in the world has a stupidly simple solution, which pisses her off immensely. Leave it to some bored god to make the world all too easy to figure out. What a stupid world. ''This is stupid. Ru sighs. This is really stupid. The First had been handsome, until the illusion wore off. The whole world is really stupid. ''And then there had been the Necromancer, appearing out of the blood in the ground… …And the present issue, of the bottle in her hands. Ru knows well enough to not trust potions (she swears that Rinzler sniffed glue in his childhood), but Sosostriss seemed to be certain of their worth. She uncorks it carefully, smells the contents (it smells of dung and singed hair, with a strong acrid stench of vinegar, and something else that she can’t quite place…mushrooms? Some sort of weed or herb?) and wrinkles her nose. She looks around before unclipping her armour and letting it fall to the ground. The contents of the bottle (worth more than her life) are highly viscous but neither oily nor extremely sticky, and pour slowly. She tries not to breathe through her nose as she works the brew in her fingers, warming it up before spreading it on her arms and legs, with a little left over for her stomach. Eventually, feeling quite silly, she rests her head on the brick wall behind her, covered in the foul-smelling stuff. For a long moment nothing happens. Then she begins to feel a tingling in her upper arms, and her breath catches in her throat as she can feel something burning through her pores, all the way down to her bones. (''these are my mother’s bones) Clenching her teeth out of reflex, she can feel her skin tighten as the blood begins to rush through her. She can feel her heart pounding, hear the roar in her ears, as she begins to twitch, then spasm. She chokes on her spit. And then she feels it – the pounding centers in her muscles, strips her bare, and she feels the skin stretch. When it is over she is a twitching mess of sweat and dirt, a thin trickle of blood spilling from the corner of her mouth. She lies there for quite some time, until the moon has fully taken over the sky, and the stars are out in full force. Only then does she slowly pick herself up, make a half-hearted attempt at wiping away the dirt, and drag herself back into the inn. She falls asleep in the tub, and does not wake until morning. Category:Blog posts Category:Reflection